This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
This is a machine generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
The Regional Plan Association held his twenty second annual conference last month and the occasion was remarkable for three reasons their first two governors responded to the association's invitation to address the luncheon both Governor rock of New York and Governor here was in New Jersey the governor spoke informally made it pretty clear that they knew the association and respect of its work second about two thousand persons attended the conference more than three times the number that used to attend regional plan conferences at the beginning of the one nine hundred sixty S. this increase result represents I believe the growth of concern in the problems regional planning to try to solve. The conference was unlike most meetings of this kind including previous ones held by the Association in which large numbers of citizens come to hear the experts on a variety of technical subjects at this meeting the afternoon was devoted to the response of the audience to what the planners had to say in the morning and do a background book at center registrants in advance participants sounded round tables in groups of ten talking about questions like these should lower cost housing we build outside the older cities to lessen the pressures on housing in the older cities and to promote more varied population the suburbs should more office jobs be located in and happen where in the metropolitan area would you locate the new apartments which would be want to over the coming generation should highway travel be discouraged if so how this effort to get public responds to planning proposals is just one of a series of such projects Regional Planning Association has undertaken and hopes to undertake in the future. Plans that don't enter the idea stream of the public are useless the Association feels the two way discussion in meetings like the regional plan conference encourages civic business and government leaders who tend to take a look new look at urban as well as regional problems at the same time it tells the planners whether their ideas make sense to the people who have to be convinced enough to fight for them Regional Planning is having more and more influence on what happens in the urban areas throughout our Country Regional Planning Association is entirely unofficial body privately support its importance lies in the effect its recommendations have on the directions taken by official planning agencies of the states counties cities towns and villages of our area you can familiarize yourself with its work by writing to a general plan Association at two three zero West Forty first Street there is Robert C. Weinberg quite a good lodge in architecture and planning.